A Story Takes on the Stigma of Entrepreneurial Failure

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When my daughter was in public school, she struggled with tests–which was a constant source of pain for her. I continually pointed out to her that she could not give her power away to a system that made up arbitrary rules about intelligence—and, that had, indeed, little intelligence itself. But this never penetrated. The stigma around failing is so effectively baked into our culture’s nervous system that it has not been rooted out of her.

I venture to say that goes for the rest of us, as well.

Last fall, I read multiple books by Silicon Valley stars. I wanted to see how, as I think of it, the “other continent of entrepreneurs” is raised. (Our continent being the one of internet marketing and coaching/consulting.)

The philosophy prevalent in Silicon Valley affected me. I’m sure you know their motto–which has been criticized, but that nevertheless has inarguable wisdom in it: Fail fast, fail often, fail forward.

They are—if not always succeeding, at the least attempting to create a culture where shame of failure is replaced by pride in failure. It is encouraged! Why? Because their position is that those who fail to do something bold will one day succeed at doing something bold.

At the end of this reading marathon, (The Lean StartUp by Eric Ries; Getting to Plan B by John Mullins and Randy Komisar; Bold by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler; Zero to One by Peter Thiel), I emerged from the waters that tech entrepreneurs swim in every day…healed in some way. They have constructed an alternative universe with new rules work that work for them (as far as I can know, as an outsider)—and that can work for us all.

It is not a Silicon Valley philosophy. It is universal wisdom. They have simply been bold enough to put it into practice.

If they can do it, we, too, can remove ourselves from the childish system in which we’ve been raised, which demonizes mistakes, and reach instead for a reality based on a truer paradigm that has space and enthusiasm for failure.

With those books metabolized within me, many tributaries began to converge. I thought of all of the clients who come to me, tattered and worn because the system told them what to do to succeed, but still, they struggle. And worse than any financial concerns they have, they carry shame over the failures because, according to the system, success is easy. They’re left with no other perception but that something is wrong with them that it has not been.

I was delighted to see Eric Ries put a name to this nefarious system, calling it the “mythmaking industry”—and I was surprised to find that Silicon Valley has it, too. But, oh, how pervasive it is in the coaching/ consulting/internet marketing industry! Every day the vulnerable become prey to their puffed-up claims.

And that’s when an idea for a fable-novella was born whose central theme would be about the stigma of failure and its twin, shame—and whose key solution to business struggle would be its banishment, tapping into some of what Silicon Valley teaches, as well as much that I do.

wolfleavesthepackOver the next six months, the story unfolded of a lone wolf named Wolf, who leaves The Pack and Status Quo County to make a dent in the universe. It is a classic hero’s journey of trials and tests, fear and second-guessing; wisdom and triumph over the enemy—and the final “return,” where transformation is realized and shared with others.

I wrote The Tale of Wolf, His Snake Oil and a Skunk specifically for our “continent of entrepreneurs,” who are prey to our particular mentoring industry and too often do not achieve its promises. Who have a great idea, but discover it doesn’t “just sell itself”; who have more passion than there are stars, but the money does not follow. Who work hard yet still struggle. And worst of all, who never give up. (The story explains why that is the worst myth of them all.)

I also wrote this for my daughter, whose world-view I seek to shatter every time I text her, “How did you fail today?” Then, congratulate her heartily for whatever her response.

And I wrote it for myself because I am much too hard on myself for even the slightest so-called failure. Among having other missions, I want to help create a new world where failure is exalted because it is the sign of daring heart and mind, and where shame is vanquished by a new strength of Self. This is when we will know we live in a society of true strength.

It begins with Wolf, His Snake Oil and a Skunk, which will be available soon—in a very unique form. Stay tuned for more details!

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Entrepreneurs: Time to Shatter Your Glass Ceiling!

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You’ve no doubt heard more references to yesterday’s being an historical day than you can count. I’m going to say it too, but my purpose is apolitical.

I am using this occasion to activate something within you that may be slumbering—either in these sleepy summer months, or, more broadly, at this time in your life, when complacency may have crept in.

Yesterday, Hillary Rodham Clinton made history by shattering the so-called glass ceiling that has kept women out of the Presidential office for as long as there has been such an office. The accomplishment, no matter your politics, is undeniable.

But let’s use this moment to take a look at the history-making possible for you–only when you shatter your own glass ceiling.

What Barriers Still Exist Between You and Your Legacy Dream?

Clinton is unique, in that her barriers were almost entirely external. Perhaps yours are, too, in which case, you have surely identified them and are on your way to defeating them.

In my experience over the last decade of working with entrepreneurs on their big dreams, external glass ceilings are the exception. Nearly 99% of entrepreneurial limitations are created within. They are constructions of self-imposed fear, self-imposed doubt, self-imposed skepticism, self-imposed “certainty” of failure.

Clinton could not—and for that matter no leader could–be in high-profile positions with internal glass ceilings. Something within her, and within all leaders of big aspirations, long ago shattered those self-created barriers.

One could speculate how they did it, what factors played a role, but it comes down to this single truth: something was more important than the doubt, fear and insecurity. Some vision wielded enough strength to break through the self-talk that keeps so many stuck in their personal status-quos.

I’m going to call this vision a wrecking ball.

wrecking-ballWith enough wind-up, enough will, enough strength that weapon can sail through any barrier, shattering it into enough tiny pieces to render it nonexistent.

Have you ever had a wrecking ball that powerful?

Then you know what it did for your life.

Do you need another one now? Have you, over the years—perhaps by slow-growing complacency, disillusionment, distrust or worries about getting too old–constructed another glass ceiling above yourself that needs the weapon of powerful vision to not just crack it but vaporize it?

Hilary made history because she shattered a glass ceiling.

You can only make history—whatever that means for you—by doing the same.

There is no other way.

Examine Your Glass Ceiling

Imagine that your ceiling is made of many pieces, rather than one sheet of glass.

And imagine that each piece is inscribed with a limiting “truth” you’ve been telling yourself. One says, “I don’t have enough credentials.” Another: “No one will buy it.” Or, “I don’t have the energy to work that hard.”

Now stare up at your patchwork ceiling and ask yourself this: “Do I want these things to be true?”

Because perhaps, really, you are looking for an excuse to live a quieter life. Perhaps legacy dreams were for another era, but our culture has shamed you into not being able to admit that. If you discover that your answer is, “Yes, I want these to be true,” then salute your ceiling for its wisdom and go proudly about your life.

But if your answer is, “Hell no! I don’t want it to be true that I’m too old or that I don’t have enough money or enough influence” or whatever is emblazoned on those glass pieces above you…

…then it’s time to build your wrecking ball.

Building the Power To Shatter Your Ceiling

This question will jump-start the building process: “What cause (that is bigger than I am) is more important than my fear?”

You might say, “Empowering those whose jobs are now obsolete to find new work.”

Next, you will ask: “What result, within that cause, is more important than my fear?”

You might answer, “Getting those people trained to work in IT.”

Finally, make the result measurable. “Getting 30% of all unemployed in each state trained to work in IT.”

But a wrecking ball has no power on its own. It will never shatter your self-imposed ceiling without momentum, motivation. It will just sit there as dead weight.

You know the feeling: you have big ideas, but you don’t do anything about them–and the shame works on you.

The following three questions reveal why people do/do not act. When we answer yes to these, we move; when any one is met with a “no” or “I don’t know,” we sit.

  1. Can it be done?
  2. Can I do it?
  3. Is it worth it?

In order for your wrecking-ball-vision to blast your ceiling, you need a yes for all three.

Number three is the only one that can’t be transformed or persuaded into a yes. If your cause is not worth it, don’t waste another moment considering it. Get another one–or salute your glass ceiling and proudly go about your life.

But if the first two are no’s, there is persuading to be done! These are the very questions, answered in doubt, that construct your glass ceiling. So, to get momentum behind your vision, answer these:

  1. What and who could get it done?
  2. What and who could help me do it?

By now, you should be feeling like the Hulk! Starting to bust at the seams of possibility.

THAT is the wind-up that will catapult your wrecking ball right through your ceiling.

And you know what’s kind of funny about it all? Funny-curious, not funny ha-ha.

Nothing physical was needed to shatter your limitations. All of it was done with thought. It goes to show that your glass ceiling is, and has always been, fragile–made itself only of thought. Against the power of a vision greater than yourself, it doesn’t have a chance.

I help entrepreneurs build their legacy dreams (100% original and marketable.) In doing so, they shatter the self-imposed limitations that held them back for so long, and they say that is perhaps the most important outcome.

If you are ready to blast through your glass ceiling and into a vision and future worthy of you, click here, scroll to the bottom, and let’s talk!

Part 2: Business Is Different for You–The Reckoning

Yesterday, I wrote about the destructive war within 90% of“transformation artists”—those whose work it is to empower people (vs. other entrepreneurs). The war is this: they have a powerful Impulse that woke them up to this work, an Impulse that consumes them, really, to have an effect on the world…but then an opposing force works on them to stay in cozy-and-comfortable. That’s the Hider.

I told the story of losing my cool on an audience of transformation artists—who have the most direct access to the Impulse of any group I know—yet who gave me a flaccid response to a powerful question I asked them: “Is it all right for you to be in the middle-of-the curve where good enough is good enough?”

I got mad at them—(for them)—but if I’d had time, I would have led them into the fields to get in touch with the cost of living this way, and facilitate a moment of reckoning for them, where they would decide once and for all that they’d had enough.

ScarlettOharaThat moment of reckoning is best done just as it was for Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind: in the fields of your life, where the ground is parched and cracked from lack of nourishment, where it is impossible for you to ignore the effects of your choices on your psyche, your family, your self-regard.

Because the truth is, that ground on which you stand is a result of the decisions you’ve made. If you’re hiding out in the middle-of-the-curve, where mediocrity reigns, it was your decision to lower your standards and sell your soul for security. It was your decision to make comfort more important than the Impulse that brought you to this work. It was your decision to get your ducks in order rather than get your butt out the door to sell.

But here’s the great, great, GREAT news: it can be your decision that turns all of that around–and on a dime.

It’s just a decision. Scarlett made it: “As God as my witness, I will never go hungry again!”

It’s a decision of determined emotion—it’s not intellectual. In my days as an empowerment coach, I would stimulate this Scarlett O’Hara Moment with clients who desperately needed it, and I could hear when it was coming from their head. Scarlett was not in her head. She was in her soul. She was in her past and she was in her probable future–and she hated them both. She was done with both of them. When you’re done, you know it in every fiber of your being.

The other emotion was hope—belief that it could be another way. She saw herself living in prosperity and beauty. Belief is key to the moment of reckoning.

And then there is the cut-off—and it’s an emotional experience. It is the decision that there is no other option.  It is the decision to burn all boats. “If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill…”

I’ll do whatever it takes. There is no other option.

It all happens in a single instant. Lives can change–yours can change–in the snap of a finger.

I dare say that all internal struggle is a failure to decide. If an issue in your life is dragging on, you are failing to make a decision. Make that decision—have your in-the-fields moment of reckoning—and 1:02 pm will be diametrically opposite to 1:01pm, setting in motion an entirely new life.

And here’s the truth about decisions: when they’re made—full-bodied, full-sensory decisions—the struggle is behind you. The struggle was in not deciding. Once you have, you’ll see that everything that follows is like a tumble down the hill!

I made one of the most shocking decisions of my life one year ago when I decided to stop eating carbs. In a dressing room last April, I had a Scarlett O’Hara moment–the emotion, the disgust, the done-ness. I said to myself, “Why don’t you give carbs up for two days.” In that instant, I decided to do it.  And after that day, I decided to make it permanent.  To everyone’s jaw-dropping surprise, one year later, I hardly have them. Let me reiterate: I loved my carbs. They gave me great joy! No one ever could have convinced me that I would enjoy eating more without them! If I had tried to eliminate them (“trying” is impotence dressed up to impress), I would have failed. But there was no trying; only deciding.

If you want to get out of mediocrity—anywhere in your life—you can do it. And it can be easy! It can be like sliding down a slide at your favorite amusement park, if you wish. But only when you take yourself out to the fields and decide. Decide means to “cut off” in Latin.

Cut off what has not worked by declaring: “As God (or whatever) is my witness, I will never __________ again!!”

If the Impulse came to you years ago and “infected” you with the need to make a dent in the universe, get yourself into your field now. There is no excuse for languishing in the middle-of-the curve!!

And whatever you do, don’t stay in hiding as you take time deciding about deciding!! LOL. You don’t need 5 months of therapy to make a decision.  You don’t even need a coach.

You just need to come face-to-face with the costs of your own destructive choices, get in touch with the hope and belief in something so much better–and harness the courage to cut-off all options but the one that brings change!

If you want bigger, you have to BE bigger! And that can happen in an instant. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I dare you to take yourself to your proverbial field and raise your own fist to the heavens. Tonight.

What will you say?
Continue on to Part 3, where we look at the typical positioning strategies you’ve been told to use—but that come straight from the middle-of-the-curve gurus. Business is different for you. Be different!

Part 1: Business Is Different for You–Come Out of Hiding!

ICFCTHoppingMadCROPPEDI’m sharing this less-than-flattering picture because it captures a key moment in a presentation I gave recently when I lost my composure and got positively HOPPING MAD.

I’ve never actually lost it on an audience before, but here I am, literally jumping up and down in beyond-disbelief-frustration, as I called them out on the very reason they’re not where they want to be in their lives and businesses. Maybe the whole scene will resonate with you, too.

Let me give some context: I work with coaches and subject-matter experts with a fairly powerful impulse to change the world. Now, all entrepreneurs want to do that: from Silicon Valley app developers to social entrepreneurs tackling poverty and clean water issues.

But something makes coaches and the subject-matter experts I work with different from all of them: they want to empower people—how people think, act, behave. Their distinction is that they’re compelled to raise the consciousness on the planet. I call them “transformation artists.”

Most likely, if you’re reading this, you’re a transformation artist, too. And that Impulse to change the world is a strong, relentless driver, is it not? It’s got its hand on your back almost every minute of every day; it pulls you to your feet when you’re slacking, and floods you with images of your potential when you’re doubting yourself. Right?

But here’s the problem. There’s an opposite-force driver that is, miraculously, even stronger than the Impulse. It’s the Hider, who handcuffs you to your home-office arm chair and seduces you into writing books, strategizing, “preparing” and otherwise finding ways to keep you out of the limelight (i.e. marketing.)

The Hider shouts, “Anything but the limelight!! That hot beam will fry you! Who’s going to believe you? Who’s even going to get what you’re saying? They’ll crucify you out there.  Stay out at all costs!”

The Hider is a demagogue–and a cunning one. It knows about its arch-rival, the Impulse. It knows if it exerts too much pressure in the opposite direction, you might come to your senses. So, it keeps you in the game—it just directs you to do it from the middle-of-the-curve.

And good thing, because it’s cozy in there. You get to relax because expectations aren’t high. Those crowded in there with you aren’t suffering too badly; no one’s humiliated from having exposed too much of themselves or said something too off-color. Those to the right of you offer good-enough programs…those to the left have acceptable brands. So, you do, too. Who’s going to ridicule you if you look like them? Sound like them?

Who’s going to notice if your business model is like theirs; your fee structure, promotion strategies, messaging, branding, marketing? Who’s going to complain if you’re just like everyone else?

No one. They’ll just hit “delete.”

And so, you become just like them. It’s so much easier than being seen and rejected on the fringe.

The Hider is pleased.

But you slip deeper and deeper into the crowd.

Where no one can find you.

And where you can’t hear the Impulse within you at all anymore. It’s just a faint, far-off pulse-beat.

I want to ask you:

Is this okay with you?

Is it okay for you to be where good-enough is good-enough??

Is it okay with you to settle into the middle of the curve and follow—when you’ve been called to LEAD??

This is the question I asked to the live audience recently. It was their response that brought out my Irish.

They gave me a low, grumbling, uncertain, uncommitted, “No.”

And I lost it. I lost it because this is not the first time that front-line change agents have given me this half-hearted reply to the same question.

I had more to say, but I couldn’t. I stopped. I stared. And I started jumping up and down, flailing my arms about. “Are you kidding me!??” I cried. “In what UNIVERSE is it okay for you to perpetuate the status-quo and argue for your limitations??? In what UNIVERSE is mediocrity okay—especially when it’s your own life? Your own calling? Your own purpose??”

I did it in such a way that I never lost them, even though I was genuinely mad–and that’s because they knew I was mad on their behalf. I was embodying the Impulse, channeling it, daring them to wake up. I was all for them.

As I’m all for you.

For who you are meant to be–for yourself. And for your family.

For those you’re here to wake up and teach.

So, if you were in the room and you’d given me a grumble, I’d have been hopping mad at you, too.

If you’re hiding out in your 1-gig contract or home-office and not honoring what called you to do the work you do in the first place–and some how weren’t SERIOUSLY DISTURBED about that…

…I’d have been hopping mad at you, too.

If you were in the room, you’d have seen me settle down after a minute and then ask again.

With even greater volume and energy than I’d used the first time, I asked:

Is it okay for you to be where good-enough is good-enough??

Is it okay with you to settle into the middle of the curve and follow—when you’ve been called to LEAD??

How would you answer?

Read Part 2 now. Answer that question BIG and POWERFULLY once and for all–by taking a page out of Scarlett O’Hara’s book.

Will I (And All Experts) Be Out of a Job in 10 Years?

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This summer, I went in search of my Next Big Thing. I’ve been feeling uninspired for a couple of years in my business and knew something needed to change. I began reading a lot of books by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and new ideas began to form.

Astro Teller, who heads up GoogleX, an internal think tank at Google, coined the phrase “moonshot thinking” to mean the ability to not merely think out of the box to arrive at innovation–but out of our known atmosphere.

I began posing questions to myself that stretched my imagination—not out of the atmosphere, perhaps, but certainly out of my normal thinking—and that necessarily required looking at the future of society. When I work with subject-matter experts to develop their thought leader brand and messaging, we cover the future because one must be a futurist to stand on a thought leader platform. However, I’ve never had them project societal changes ten years down the road; the questions I presented to myself did that.

And the answers I arrived at set in motion a very new direction for my work and I couldn’t be happier…though they also revealed a possibility that I will be out of a job in a decade or less. And maybe you, too.

One of the questions that brought me this insight is on page 12 of a new workbook I developed, which you can have at no cost by clicking her: Unleash The Brilliance of Your Next Big Thing!

UnleashBrillianceNBTSpiral1500

The question was, What major changes are likely to happen over the next ten years in key societal areas?” So, I considered the areas of “education,” “religion” “politics,” to name a few, and concluded with–“my field.”

I’d already considered the current zeitgeist (spirit of the times) and when I looked ahead, I could see one phenomenon in particular exploding. I call it “crowd connection” –and I think you know just what it is because it’s everywhere: strangers connecting, both online and in wildly popular in–person Meetups.

If “crowd connection” is this strong just ten years after the birth of social media, which is wholly responsible for this exploding event–how powerful will it be ten years from now?

But there’s more to “crowd connection” than just connection–and it is in this that I see untold potential. Today, crowds are coming together to solve problems that were once only the domain of government, churches or big business. They’re educating the poor in developing countries (instead of the educational system), as well as making entrepreneurial ventures possible there. The crowd is paying medical bills for those who can’t afford to; putting successful pressure on dictators and college administrators. Open-source niche crowds are together materializing world-changing innovations—Wikipedia being just one small example.

There’s been a lot written (pro and con) on the “wisdom of crowds”—how accurate a crowd can be versus an individual—but what’s happening now isn’t about the wisdom/accuracy of crowds, its about the ingenuity of crowds. I call what we are witnessing now “crowd genius,” and we haven’t even begun to tap its potential. Think about it: “crowd connection” is in its infancy. Can you imagine what we’ll be doing together when we’ve had a few more years of experimentation under our belts? A few more decades?

When I take to imagining it, I experience a profound joy because I am an anti-establishment kind of gal; “buck the system”; “leave the pack”—“power to the people not the few” and all of that. In time, “crowd genius” has the power to crowd out the establishment and bring us a far more equitable world; it has already begun to do so.

So, as I was working out the idea for my Next Big Thing, I took what is happening now with “crowd genius” and projected out ten years to answer the question: What major changes will be happening in my field (advisory/education roles) over ten years–and my response surprised me.

I had to confront the possibility that there won’t be a need for subject-matter experts to advise or educate others—because collective genius will be more powerful, more creative, more inventive than one advisor or teacher. If the (more progressive) branches of our educational system are already shifting teachers into “guides on the side” rather than “sages on the stage,” it stands to reason that within ten years, that expert businesses everywhere will either be obsolete or in “on the side” roles, facilitating the brilliance of the collective.

But we’re not all out of jobs yet. (Smile) The truth is that today there still exists a need for “sages on stages”–for your knowledge and expertise—and for mine, in helping subject matter experts construct their ideas, strategies and thought leadership narrative. As likely as I believe the future scenario is, another truth will also likely prevail: no matter how ingenious the creative group mind can be, the blind leading the blind will always be trouble. We can always learn from those who’ve gone before.

Yet, in response to the zeitgeist of our times and the future I foresee, I find myself compelled to design a new way to do my work, to blend my “sage from the stage” role with “collective genius,” so that solo proprietorships build the most extraordinary businesses and Next Big Things.

In this new model, represented in my 10X series, I will bring the encyclopedic knowledge I’ve amassed from being in business for fifteen years and use it to focus a group on only the most important business projects. Focus has been proved to precede “flow”—a phenomenological state where performance goes through the roof; it is high-speed problem-solving.

Imagine the possibilities for an already “genius crowd” when it is guided into flow through focused attention on certain business tasks–to build 10X (10 times) better businesses? This is my new calling.

And it brings to mind one of my favorite movies of all times, Witness with Harrison Ford, and one of my all-time favorite scenes, when all of the men in town gather to build a neighbor’s house. It gets me every time I think about it.

We are in a time when “barnraising” one another’s dreams is our now and it is absolutely our future. Building businesses as lone wolves will very soon be as old a practice as sparking fire with sticks.

Join me on the front lines of this future: where together we will go farther than we could ever go alone.

And be sure to register for the first-ever free online collaborative “idea lab” January 5!

What do YOU think. Will you be out of job as an expert in 10 years?

Thank you, Grandma. Celebrating Women’s Entrepreneur Week!

WomenSuffrage1915

Incredible as it may seem, one hundred years ago—1915—American women still did not have the right to vote on a national basis. This post’s image is a cartoon from Puck magazine in 1915: the torch of successful suffragists in the West awakens women in other parts of the country.

In 1916, women’s suffrage was endorsed on a state-by-state basis—thanks to the two-million-women membership of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

The suffrage movement in the U.S. had been in existence since the 1840’s, but the opposition had proved mighty and successful. It was well understood that the demand to vote was far more than a philosophical plea; there was a women’s movement underway and to achieve its much wider goals, political pressure was critical. The right to vote was really the first step in a plan with far-reaching intentions. Again, because men understood this, suffrage was a harrowing and sometimes brutal fight. Read what the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association wrote in 1920, after the 19th Amendment was ratified:

“To get the word ‘male’ in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign…During that time they were forced to conduct fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive congresses. Millions of dollars were raised, mainly in small sums, and expended with economic care. Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could.

What was the fierce opposition truly about? Was it that men believed (as they easily proclaimed) that women were foolish and couldn’t be trusted with such power? Did they really believe that with the vote, witless women would destroy the country and world?

Susan B. Anthony gives insight into the reality. One of the leaders of the suffrage movement, she once said, “No advanced step taken by women has been so bitterly contested as that of speaking in public. For nothing which they have attempted, not even to secure the suffrage, have they been so abused, condemned and antagonized.”

Suffragette. "I defy anyone to name a field of endeavour in which men do not receive more consideration than women!" Voice from crowd. "What about the bally ballet?"

What men feared was not women’s inadequacy, but their power. It was their voices they worked tirelessly to suppress. Throughout the ages, they had witnessed women’s resilience, their strength in the face of losses, their undaunted spirits, and their keen, problem-solving minds. Were all of that to be given a megaphone, control would be lost.

In celebrating Women’s Entrepreneur Week, we are celebrating women’s voices and all that comprise them: the vision, creativity, compassion, genius and inspiration. This week, I in particular, am honoring my grandmother, Hazel May Kassor, who was a tireless suffragette herself. I am honoring the fact that every day that I work in my own business, share my message, live my truth, I do so because of her and all of the women who sacrificed so much.

As you go forward, growing your business or developing plans to start it, know that you do not do it alone. Millions and millions of women held you in their vision a century ago; they saw you and all you could be. You kept them going, enabled them to take unfathomable risks…and win.

They were the ultimate inspired leaders.

I wager they would have been exceptional and wildly successful female entrepreneurs today.

Take their spirit with you this week, do great things–and pay it forward!

How to Be a Fool-Proof Leader On April Fool’s Day and Every Day!

Today is April Fool’s Day–and in service of ensuring that YOU not be one yourself…here are some stories that will amaze you–and a vital quiz to take. 

In 1941, Alice Stewart was a resident in Oxford, England at the Radcliffe Infirmary. She was a highly respected doctor. She treated patients, but also undertook research projects on problematic, puzzling disease patterns. One in particular was the rate of leukemia affecting children ages 2-4. 

The high rate of cancer in this age group was odd; by that age, Stewart knew, most children are healthy. And more perplexing, these children were from countries with good medical care; they weren’t poor. She set out to interview the mothers and found the answer: 

A single diagnostic X-ray was enough to double the risk of early cancer death. Within three years, Stewart and her colleagues had traced 80% of all childhood cancer deaths in England to X-rays. 

Yet, imagine this: doctors continued X-raying pregnant mothers for the next twenty-five years!!!! 

How could doctors the world over be so blind? 


Simply, Stewart had to be seen as wrong.
If she was right,
it meant too many other things also had to be wrong. It couldn’t be true that radiation was both a new wonder tool AND also killed children. It could not be true that doctors “cured patients” AND made them sick. The easiest way to reduce the pain of two opposing “truths” is to eliminate one of them. “It was easier for doctors to 

cling to their beliefs and to the idea that doctors are authoritative, smart, good people—than to save children!!” 

Imagine that!! 

This is one of many stories in an incredibly provocative book I’m reading, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril by Margaret Heffernan. 

“We are prepared to pay a very high price to preserve our most cherished ideas,” she writes. 

And we know this. We see it every day. We see governments turning blind eyes to their own behavior; executives turning blind eyes to the unethical actions of their corporations. We’ve watched nations be willfully blind about genocide; the Catholic Church about abuse of its children. 

“We prefer ignorance to knowledge, and deal with conflict and change by imagining it out of existence. We don’t want to change, so we pretend we don’t know.” 

And, Heffernan points out in her opening chapter, we all do it. We are fiercely committed to our own status-quos, to what is comfortable and easy for us.

The statistics on who we marry and whom we befriend show that we choose those who will reinforce our self-identities and turn away from those who will challenge them. And so we ignore realities..at our own peril. 

We smoke, overeat, stay in abusive relationships, fail to speak up about abuses and injustices. 

Heffernan: “We mostly admit the information that makes us feel great about ourselves, while conveniently filtering out whatever unsettles our…egos and most vital beliefs.
Ideology powerfully masks what is obvious, dangerous or Absurd. Fear of conflict, fear of change keeps us this way.” 

And I think we would all agree there is no better definition of “fool” than one who ignores the facts, the data, the reality staring us in the face. 

So, today is your chance to “fool-proof” yourself! 

To check-in on all the areas of your life where you are being willfully blind—and as a consequence, harming others and most assuredly yourself. 

Here’s a small quiz–that will only be effective if you dare to be honest with your answers. 

Why would you take this quiz? Because if you’re in business for yourself, you are a leader, and this is critical to your success as one. 

  1. What have I been pretending not to see about my business?
    (Or career.)
  2. What have I been pretending not to see about my clients?
    (Or boss?)
  3. What have I been pretending not to see about my finances?
  4. What have I been pretending not to see about my relationship to money?
  5. What have I been pretending not to see about my bank account?
  6. What have I been pretending not to see about my mate?
  7. What have I been pretending not to see about my friends?
  8. What have I been pretending not to see about my family?
  9. What have I been pretending not to see about my moods and attitudes?
  10. What have I been pretending not to see about my choices?
  11. What have I been pretending not to see about my lifestyle?
  12. What have I been pretending not to see about my living conditions?
  13. What have I been pretending not to see about my health?
  14. What have I been pretending not to see about my eating habits?
  15. What have I been pretending not to see about what is lacking in my life?
  16. What have I been pretending not to see in what I have been tolerating?
  17. What have I been pretending not to see about my likely future?

If you follow me, you are committed to changing the world in some way. You are here to wake up the sleepers. To wake up those who are willfully blind. 

Well, here’s one of those nasty realities you can’t be willfully blind about:

If you’re a coach, consultant, trainer or speaker waking up others…you cannot be turning a blind eye to anything in your life.

As a leader, you must be awake and conscious yourself. 

In one of the studies Heffernan recounts, nurses were “tested”  to see if they would blindly accept orders from a doctor that conflicted with their primary duty to care for patients.

Prior to the test, the researchers surveyed 33 graduate and student nurses and asked how they predicted the experiment would go. Thirty-one believed the subjects would not administer
the medication the nurses would be told by a doctor to give. 

The study showed that 21 of the 22 participating nurses would have administered the drug. The research team wrote: “Insofar as the nurse is concerned, [she is] operating to a considerable extent below the threshold of consciousness. 

It is a point Heffernan makes about us all. 

You are a transformation artist. An agent of change. You cannot operate at below the threshold of consciousness. 

On this Fool’s Day, commit to yourself forever not to be one–so you can do the work you are here to do! 

Here’s a 2-minute video-story I created recently about this very phenomenon. Go take a look! 

Here’s to changing the world–FOOL-PROOF! 

The Question That Could Change Your 2015 (And Your Life)

So, if you will, bring to mind your life right now.
Your romantic relationship.
Your relationship with your children…siblings…parents.
Your work life.
Your health.
Your lifestyle.
Your relationship with money.
Your spiritual practice.

Think about…
Where you get reactionary.
Where anxiety spikes.
Where you feel drained.
What you’re enduring.
What you long for but don’t have.

Here’s the question that will change 2015 and your life, if you allow it to:

“Are you willing not to recognize yourself a year from now?”

Please take a moment to let the question sink in. Perhaps read it again.
And again.

It’s a perfectly phrased question because it begins with the most important factor: are you willing?

If you’re not, I suppose we’re done and you can return to your life as-is.

But if you are willing, shall we explore what’s possible and how you might do it?

Let’s take the second element of the question: “not recognizing yourself.
If they were unrecognizable to you one year from now, what would be changed in your:

Romantic relationship?
Relationship with your children…siblings…parents?
Work life?
Health?
Lifestyle?
Relationship with money?
Spiritual practice?

What about the places where you get reactionary and anxious now? In one year—if you were unrecognizable to your current self–what would your responses to those things look like? And what would life be like then?

What about the areas that drain you? Or those people, conditions and things you repeatedly tolerate in quiet desperation. If, in one year, you were unrecognizable to yourself today–what you would be doing with them?

And how would your life be different because of it?

“Are you willing not to recognize yourself a year from now?”

What’s your answer on this second go-‘round?

Maybe you’re thinking, “Yes, I’m willing but how do I become unrecognizable to my self?”

Scarlett Has the Key

Back ten years ago, when I was a personal transformation coach, I coined the phrase “Scarlett O’Hara Moment” to illustrate the critical moment of change in any human being’s life: the moment when we have a fierce reckoning with ourselves, and with our God, because the soil underneath us is dried, devoid of nutrients…and we’ve gone without too long.

We feel weary and hopeless, on our hand and knees…but then, something powerful rises within us; the sense that we are not supposed to live this way, that things can be better, that we can make them better. And we get to our feet. We raise our fist to the sky, train our eyes on whatever power needs to hear us, and we declare, in no uncertain terms, as Scarlett did: “As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!

It is a deeply private moment that no one sees and perhaps no one ever knows about, but in it, a promise is made. An unbreakable covenant between you, yourself and whatever is there to listen. You declare that no externals will take you down. You will live through the drought until it rains, and once it does, you will never, never, never go thirsty again. No matter what you have to do (and sometimes it is far scarier than lying, stealing, cheating or killing; it is burning boats, saying good-bye, saying ‘no’, letting go, forgiving, giving up control)—you will do them, you will do them all, because as God is your witness, you will never ______again!

This is the moment that creates change. I have never known or seen any other way. You cannot expect a mountain to move by gently asking it to. It requires something profound rising up from the deep well within you, a fierce decision that you are done with the old; that you deserve the new, the all-new, the all-new you. I had such a moment as I saw my 50th birthday looming over me this last year—and what it provoked me to do, and the transformation that resulted; the fact that I am unrecognizable to the self I was just 6 months ago–was made possible only because I raised my fist to the sky.

The transformation we’re seeing all across the globe is happening only because people are rising to their feet and declaring an end to the old.

This is the time of year when we typically seek the new–but by March, our ideas and intentions have pretty much fallen away as we slip back asleep into our status quo. This could happen to you; probably has every year you’ve been alive. On January first, you are passionate that your relationship be more intimate, or that your work be more meaningful. You feel the exhilaration of swimming against the default-stream of your life and charging after new possibility. But when the current of your life gushes strong again, you allow yourself to get carried away by it. Again.

This is because there was no stake-in-the-ground, as-God-is-my-witness, final, fierce, no-going-back-ever-no-matter-what-it-takes, Scarlett O’Hara Moment.

If you don’t generate one, you will most likely live another year staring down at the cracked, arid land beneath your feet.

“Are you willing to recognize yourself a year from now?”

The question was altered. Did you read it with the missing word?

Are you willing, one year from now, to still be involved in toxic or empty relationships? To still be in a job that steals your life force? To still be struggling with money? Still be stuck in your business? Still feel anxious? Sick? Lonely? Restless?

If your answer is a resounding, “NO!!!” then you are on the cusp of your own Scarlett O’Hara Moment!

Do This Before You Can Talk Yourself Out Of It!

Continue with the picture I was just painting for you. Picture yourself, one year from now, in the same life. Go through every single area listed in the first two paragraphs. And agitate yourself. You must get yourself to a state of being utterly, completely, 100% done with the old that no longer fits you.

I encourage you to bring yourself to the floor, or to a place on the earth outdoors, and allow the torrent of emotions within you to be unleashed that arise at the idea of enduring more of the same for another full year.

You cannot be tame, tacit or tolerant in this moment! You must allow your emotions to rule here. State, out loud, what you’ve been enduring, what you’ve been struggling with and allow the pain of it all to coalesce.

And then, either close your eyes or look up to the sky, and feel the possibility of the new. What is there in a new future that is not here now? Who is there? Who are you?

It is there, with that glimpse of what is possible and of what you deserve, that you will rise to your feet. What comes next is all your own, but it must come from a decision. Decidere in latin means to “cut off.” This is the moment when you cut off from the old: the status-quo, tolerating, stifling, struggling, longing, heart-ache, guilt, shame, regret, grief, and all other experiences that shrink you and the life you are here to live.

Raise your fist—(truly do it)—and with a determination befitting all that is worthy of you—make your covenant. “As ___ is my witness, I will never ____ again! _______ is not going to best me. I will live through this and when it’s over, I will never _______ again. If I have to ___________ and ________ and ________I will never ______ again!

And then, stay true and on-course with the rolling current of your powerful declaration. Allow the strength of that promise that rent the air to take you to new places and into all new behavior.

Then, before you know it, you will come to the end of December one year from now. You will take yourself to the same spot (if it still exists) that you brought yourself to this year. And you will hear me ask: “Do you recognize yourself?”

I can see your smile. It is brilliant.

Happy New Year. Happy New You.

What Steven Tyler Taught Me About Life’s Second Half

Phone 2013 2014 753I’m leaving my forties late next month and haven’t held that fact with a great deal of excitement—until last night’s Aerosmith concert, when Steven Tyler showed me what’s truly golden about the coming years.

I went to the concert at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ primarily to see the warm-up band. I’ve seen Aerosmith a few times in my life and was kind of writing them off, for this event, as a great but worn band; the true attraction was Slash and Myles Kennedy, whose collaboration has thrilled me for the last two years. Slash is a master on the guitar; Kennedy a master with his voice. I also saw these two bands as a match made in heaven, so was eager for the concert, but, again, there mostly for the warm-up.

“Slash and the Conspirators” didn’t disappoint musically, but psychologically they did, playing mostly Guns ‘N Roses songs rather than their own. I couldn’t understand why they would do that when their songs are so good. But still, I swooned over Myles’ vocals and shook my head in awe as Slash made his guitar whine and scream—a wildly talented pair. When they were done, the concert was done for me, for the most part. I sat during intermission, waiting for Aerosmith who I knew would be good, but who had much more age on them than the guys we’d just seen and I wasn’t expecting much. Neither was my partner.

Phone 2013 2014 748But something crept into my subconscious awareness the moment Steven Tyler took the stage, strolling—or, of course, really strutting–down the runway-of-sorts they use at their concerts, festooned in red pants and scarf, a black top hat and black sequined top coat. The first notes of his iconic voice filled the arena and there everything I had thought before about the warm-up band and Aerosmith themselves was shattered like glass in an instant. There was no mistake: we were in the presence of godly mastery, the kind Slash and Myles—and anyone under sixty-six years of age–have many miles to go before achieving.

It’s nearly impossible to capture in words what makes up a star’s Star Power, and it’s surely no different with Steven Tyler, but here’s what I witnessed: This man owned that arena from the first step. No one can own a territory unless they believe they can. I’ve read Steven’s autobiography, Does the Noise In My Head Bother You?, and know that he certainly believes in himself and has from the start–but there’s no question: after forty-four years on stages, he knows he owns them. And because he knows it, we know it, too. Without my conscious attention on any of this, all thoughts of Slash and Myles (and this is really hard for me to say, given my love of them) slowly faded away. All I could see was Steven Tyler. He was larger than that venue.

And it is “age” that made that possible. It is “age” that accounts for the power of certainty that exudes from his cells; he knows who Phone 2013 2014 761he is and deeply appreciates that. You see it in the tilt of his head, sway of his hips, lilt in his step. In everything. He’s been in his body sixty-six years; he’s been cooking that long—no more salt needed.

And it is age that accounts for his making the right and perfect moves at every turn on stage, some of them for effect, some of them—well, all for effect, but some are planned, others organic. He knows how to throw the microphone stand and catch it to punctuate a note—he’s done it a thousand times. He knows how to contort his face theatrically and paint his body to affect a persona and how to mug for the big-screen cameraman to bring it further vibrantly to life. He knows how to bend backwards nimbly in expression of awe at living, and music and perhaps himself. He knows that a wind machine blowing his hair creates a mystical, ethereal feel; that being out front from his band, by a hundred feet or more, weaves deeper his legendary status. He knows that bringing Slash on stage will enthrall his audience, but that Slash must stay in the background and Joe Perry must come up front with him. He knows that the massive screen helps him seem larger-than-life—but more importantly, brings him into the laps of everyone, even those in the nose-bleeds. Everything he does he does for deliberate maximum impact on his fans, and he knows how to do it. He’s done it a thousand times.

Phone 2013 2014 765Those are all staging brilliances and innate understanding of psychology, but then there is the core of Steven Tyler: musical genius. Steven Tyler. Knows. How. To. Sing. Yes, he always has—but his twenty-seven-year-old-self cannot hold a candle to him now, at sixty-six. At the end of the night, during the encore, he sat at his white piano and started to sing an acoustic version of one of their songs but stopped and started over, apparently unhappy with how he sounded (though we couldn’t notice.) Then, after a quick jaunt into “Chopsticks,” these words floated out of him, nearly a capella: “Every time that I look in the mirror…” I wondered, can he reach the note? The one at the end that we all know so well? Can his aging vocal chords handle it? Well, he nailed it. In fact, he slayed it. Throughout the night, he slayed every single song he sung. He scatted brilliantly and effortlessly. He sang every note just as he did in 1977, 1987, 2007–but with something so much richer in his tone: age.

But if it were just sixty-six years that he was bringing to that platform, it could still not have been awe-inspiring, certainly not one of, if not the, best concert I’ve attended. (Did I mention that yet? It was.) What made it that was his extreme energy. In the public speaking training I used to teach, I would have participants hold the edges of a parachute and I’d throw a beach ball on top. I’d tell them to keep it snapping at a consistent rate, which was challenging. I told them this is how the energy in their rooms had to be, no matter how long the event—always going, always popping. Then, I’d have them slacken their grip and watch as the ball’s energy petered out. Steven didn’t just keep the ball snapping; he launched it into the rafters on every single song—he and the band, I should say. A twenty-something whipper-snapper may be able to bring boundless energy to an arena, but only a long-time veteran knows exactly where to send the ball; exactly where it will land; exactly how to alter its velocity: when to slow it down, when to take it to a fevered pitch.

Steven, I suspect, is the mastermind behind this: determining which songs they play and when to create the *precisely right* energy from second to second (which he does when he writes a single song). And this is how you know a master Phone 2013 2014 774artist is at the helm: he understands that they must open with a familiar, beloved tune and keep them coming before a new one is played. Last night, I’m not sure Aerosmith played even one new song. That, too, Steven surely did deliberately, knowing full well that to get us into the palm of his hand, to have us buy anything he or they do in the future, he must envelop us in unforgettable energy, which mostly the classic songs can do. Which only the classic entertainers can do.

I didn’t expect much from Aerosmith last night—for no particular reason—but they surprised the bajeebees out of me. What got surprised most of all was the part of me that’s had the brakes on approaching “50.” Steven Tyler, single-handedly, showed me what the next phase of life is about: it’s about growing and improving yourself and your craft forever, of course, as he does—but it’s truly about finally being able to play the full octaves of your mastery, to share your full catalogue and know you’ve got this. It is the time to own the stage–because you have done it a thousand times. These are the golden years not because the sun is setting on your life and casting a lovely hue—but because you are now an alchemist who can turn your metal–years of sweat, mistakes, and well over 10,000 hours–into gold.

Thanks, Steven! My top-hat’s off to you! You are a legend because you deserve to be. I hope the same will be said of me “when I’m sixty-four”–plus two! As you say, “Half my life’s in books’ written pages; Live and learn from fools and from sages; You know it’s true…All the things you do, come back to you.”

Phone 2013 2014 783

Is There an Inspired Thought Leader Inside of You?

Sixteen years ago, as legend has it, I read a book in six days and everything in my life changed. Upon finishing it, I knew that I needed to leave my marriage and to change the course of my career–writing novels–which I had adored.  I woke up from that book knowing I needed to do something that was more real and substantial than creating fictional plots and characters had been for me. The words that I said–in the privacy of my own head—were, ” I want to change the world.”

For two years, all dressed up with no where to go, I searched for the venue that would help me to do that and finally came upon coaching. It was not what it is today: no one had heard of it, no one understood it (I think most still don’t) and so it was wide-open terrain. I was passionate about it because I knew its empowering methodology could indeed change the world.

accelerated learning mapFive years later, at a seminar, I was captivated by a method of working with audiences derived from education science called “accelerated learning.” It was another life-changing few days, as I decided to leave coaching and immerse myself in learning everything I could about accelerated learning and brain-based learning. Eighteen months later, passionate and convicted, I launched my second business—Inspired Leaders’ Academy—with a new kind of public speaking training just for entrepreneurs, using these technologies. I knew that when used properly, this “new paradigm of audience leadership” could change the world.

It’s been many years since that launch and many more since my realization that I wanted to change the world, but the drive is as real and fresh in me as it was when I closed the cover of that book.  I still believe coaching can change the world; I know that leading audiences with the technology of brain-based-learning will change the world—and now I work with coaches and other experts to help them change the world with a third element: Thought leadership.

Here’s my conviction: No business will make it now without leaving the pack and standing far apart from everyone else. And the way coaches, consultants and other experts will do that is with a fresh, provocative, even radical, message that shatters the status quo. A thought leader message. It’s essential for survival, and the only option for changing the world.

But a thought leader message isn’t enough. I named my business Inspired Leaders’ Academy years ago because I knew to stand out, and to change the world, you must lead with inspiration.  The fact is, inspiration sells as no data, evidence, or sound intellectual arguments ever will. My father was a minister and I adapted his natural ability to inspire, so when I began leading my public speaking trainings and free events, I saw that truth in action: inspiration is the ultimate call-to-action.ShieldHighResVersion

So, to be successful and change the world, you can’t just have a thought leader message that is intellectually satisfying; you need the fire and passion of inspiration to move an audience to truly “hear” that message and make it their own. On the other hand, you cannot just have an inspirational message—heat and heart—without a solid idea that confounds common understanding, fries brain circuits and destroys conformist thinking. You need them both.

I’ll be leading a virtual event in a couple of weeks: Is There an Inspired Thought Leader Inside of You?” It’s not an easy road; it requires rigorous thinking and a commitment to excellence beyond anything you’ll see around you–but if you are here to change the world, there will be only one answer for you, as there was for me sixteen years ago: Yes, and it’s ready to come out!

So…Is There an Inspired Thought Leader Inside of You?

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